Member Rating

Compare Prices on MSC Musica Europe - Eastern Mediterranean Cruises

Fabulous holiday!!!!!!!!!

Sail Date:
August 2011

Destination:
Europe - Eastern Mediterranean

Embarkation:
Venice

My family has just returned from 7 days on MSC MUSICA, travelling the eastern med. We were a little concerned to say the least, after reading many negative reviews!! Well, what a fabulous trip!!!!!!! Beautiful ship, immaculate, lovely staff, virtually all of them are multi lingual, so language is no barrier whatsoever. The organisation is second to none! The very first day it can appear slightly chaotic, but when you realise that they are organising nearly 3000 passengers at any time, it really is pretty impressive. It took us the first evening and morning to find our feet a bit, but after that, it was so smooth.

Every day you receive an info sheet in your cabin with everything on, from the times of any excursions, to suggested dress code for the following evening,all very easy to read with clear info. The dining rooms are lovely with amazing food(5 courses in the evening!!),we were sat with a lovely English family of similar age to us, which made the experience really nice, More
or you can choose the more relaxed buffet - be prepared to put weight on!!!!!!!!!! You buy your drinks, but a carafe of wine was 7 euros - not bad!! You can get free tea, coffee and water in the buffet, which is open nearly all day and evening. My only advice would be to hit the breakfast buffet early, by 8 am it's packed!!!! We were in by around 7 each morning, had a lovely leisurely breakfast, then out in the sun!! The sun loungers are also pretty much filled up by about 9 ish, so it does pay to be up and about early! Just a word of caution though if you have kids! The pool is really cold and pretty deep! It's cleaned every day, and re filled with filtered sea water, so it's also very salty, quite a shock when you first get in!!!!! But the main pools are both 5'7" at their shallowest! There is a little kids pool, but my two couldn't swim in that as it was too shallow. Again, it's just one of those things that you soon get used too!!

We took an excursion in every port except Bari, to be honest, this is such a personal thing, you have to decide what's best for you. As we have kids (7 and 10), we wanted the organisation done for us, and found the trips to be well organised, and brilliant to do. Our table mates decided to do everything themselves, and loved doing that, so each to their own! There is so much info about the excursions on the ship, and a dedicated desk, so you can ask anything you need to, and just book the evening before. The embarkation can seem chaotic, but it's not, they have to account for everyone off the ship, so you just have to be a little patient!!!!

Our cabin we found pretty small, but very functional, we booked last December and couldn't get a balcony room, and this is the only thing I would have changed if I could, but saying that, again it was immaculate, cleaned twice a day if needed (sand off the beach!!!!!) so not really a problem! It would've been nice to sit on our own balcony occasionally, as the ship is busy, and it's good to have your own space occasionally!!

All in all, we enjoyed it so much, that we got back on Sunday night (7/8/11) and we've picked up next year's brochure already!!

The two things we really needed to know before we sailed - Yes, take some smart clothes! There are 2 gala nights, men in suits, ladies in a nice dress, kids looking good too (if you don't want to do this, just go to the informal buffet instead!) and secondly, DON'T PACK BEACH TOWELS!!!!!!! You can get lovely big towels on board for sunbathing on deck, and you can get a beach towel if you go on an excursion! Saves a lot of suitcase space!!! Less

Compare Prices on MSC Musica Europe - Eastern Mediterranean Cruises

Cabin review: MSC Musica Interior Capriccio Deck 12085

Port and Shore Excursions

Again we took the excursion to the acropolis and museum. lovely and early, so we missed a lot of the ques. English speaking tour guide who was just lovey!!!! Really chatty, great with the kids! Quite a climb up, but nowhere near as bad as I thought it would be!!!!

UNBELIEVEABLE!!!!!!! Such a beautiful city!!!! We took the city tour, which again was early, but our tour guide, (again local, spoke beautiful English) got us into some of the places early, so it was quiet, so stunning!!! We had loads of free time, so walked to city walls (there's loads of places on the walls to get drinks and ice creams etc, as it's mega hot up there!)
Very friendly people, again, lots spoke English - it's quite embarrassing really! you don't need to change any local currency (koonas) as they virtually all take euros anyway, even in the market. A brilliant place!

The beach was one of the highlights for us, beautiful volcanic beach, so it's all black, warm waters, gorgeous! Bus ride into Fira, what a beautiful town, but sooo busy!!!!!!!!!

***********IF YOU ARE ABLE BODIED, WALK DOWN THE HILL SIDE, DON'T WAIT FOR THE CABLE CAR!!!!!**********************

We were warned that there's quite a wait for the cable car, (around 45 minutes), but eventually it was well over an hour, which made it quite stressful, as you have to get back to the ship. There are loads of people trying to push in too, as they're are in the same situation!*** This is the one thing I wish we'd known here!**** Would've made it much more pleasant!

We weren't too sure what was happening as this was our morning of disembarking, but we booked a vaporetto to St Marks square. Turned out, yet again to be brilliant, as we had all morning in Venice, and were then taken back to the cruise terminal at 1 pm in time for our taxi to the airport. our luggage was there waiting for us. Yet again, superb organisation from MSC